


Unlikely Friends

by Beryll (Rynthjan)



Series: Malachite Years [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Comfort, Friendship, M/M, phoenix empire, reference to past abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-12
Updated: 2012-06-12
Packaged: 2017-11-07 13:24:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/431658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rynthjan/pseuds/Beryll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At Kalidor Military Academy two young nobles forge a friendship that will last their whole life</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unlikely Friends

**Author's Note:**

> Set in the year 5019 of the Phoenix Empire timeline.

"All right, question 43: You're stranded with your damaged jetfighter in low orbit around a class M planet. Your engines are down, so is your aviation core. What's the name of the formula you need to calculate the re-entry angle on purely aerodynamic parameters?"  
Leesha question was followed by an incredulous look from Karl. One that Leesha was familiar with by now. In a few days Karl's finals at Kalidor would start and Leesha was drilling his senior for the tests.

Every junior cadet that arrived at Kalidor was assigned to a senior cadet for tutoring. Mostly such partnerships consisted of the senior cadet shamelessly taking advantage of the junior but between Karl and Leesha a serious friendship had developed, and Leesha knew that he would miss the other Dracon when he left after his graduation.

But right now, Karl was still here at his mercy.

"They're seriously asking that?" Karl asked.

Leesha looked up from his data pad and grinned at Karl. "Yes, that's a standard question."

"This is ridiculous." Karl ran his fingers through his short spiky hair like he had been doing a lot all afternoon. "I have been trained to calculate those bloody angles, not to learn the names of some silly formulas!"

"Karl, that's not the point," Leesha said calmly, "you're not supposed to fly the fighter anyway. You're supposed to tell the pilot which formula to use!"

"The one he has to use to calculate that bloody angle...!" Karl growled.

"So that is what you tell him?" Leesha smirked. He couldn't help enjoying to have the older cadet by his balls like that. "Use the formula for the bloody angle? That will look real good in your report after the fighter crashes..."

Karl's glare could have scorched a planet.

\---

\- flashback -

Sitting on the edge of his bed, playing knucklebones with his bunkmates, senior cadet Karl Dracon wouldn't have thought this evening would bring anything out of the ordinary. It was the beginning of his last year here on Kalidor, and there really was nothing out of the ordinary he expected. 

So when a distinct knock on the door broke the relative calm of his place, consequentially his mood wasn't too bright.

"Enter!" he barked, and raised a vaguely apprehensive eyebrow as the door was opened by a youth with striking, hip-length dark green hair. 

"Junior Cadet Leesha reporting to Junior Captain Karl!" the freshman snapped crisply, his eyes straight ahead. 

Karl's slight apprehension swiftly turned into serious disgruntlement. For one, a junior cadet reporting to him meant that he had been picked to act as tutor for the fledgling, nothing Karl had ever looked forward to. He still had rather mixed feelings when thinking back at his own tutor. And second, this was Prince Leesha Dracon of P2. Of all of the many unpleasant options this year, Karl had been picked to deal with the worst. The young noble was the son of Lady Lilith, after all, the notorious head of the Imperial Intelligence Service. And his elder brother Veruda had finished the academy only a few years ago, with the stories of his legendary swashbuckling adventures still running up and down the corridors of the space-station. 

Gesturing a rather disappointed 'time out' to his comrades, Karl rose from his bed and turned towards the freshman. The youth was surprisingly pretty, he had to admit. A little chubby, maybe, but that would pass once he grew into a man. 

"You're Veruda's little brother, aren't you?" he asked calmly, trying to figure out what to do with this rather unpleasant surprise. 

"Yes, sir!" The freshman risked a curious glance at his tutor, but then remembered swiftly that he was supposed to keep his eyes straight. 

"Well, now don't you expect any special treatment because of this." Karl snapped a little colder than he initially had wanted to. "I assume I am to be your tutor here?" 

"Yes, sir!"

Apparently, there really was no way around it. So Karl sighed deeply, once again wondering what to do with the boy.

"So - any questions right now?" he asked, hoping Leesha would give him a hint on where to start. 

"No, sir!"

So this little rodent thought he could do quite fine without any help. In that case, Karl had a lot of better things to do but to take care of arrogant freshmen. 

"Well then." he said treacherously calm while reaching under his bed. From there, he produced a laundry bag of astounding proportions and pressed it into the cadet's arms. 

"Here, get this to the laundry," he ordered, adding his boots onto the bag. "And go clean these." 

Next he fetched a note from his tiny desk crammed in between his bed and the wardrobe. "Get those books from the library and while you're at it - bring these back." Thinking for a moment, he took another book from the desk saying: "Skim through this one and find me the table with the aeronautic standard vectors." Rather content with the heap of stuff that almost reached up to Leesha's face, Karl nodded. Finding the laundry and library on Kalidor station was a rather daunting task, even for people having been here for quite a while. Smirking, he asked: "Any questions?"

But the freshmen only thought for a second or two before the smoothly replied: "No, sir!"

Well, this little rodent would see how far it got with his attitude, Karl thought grimly. With a gesture of his hand, he sent the youth away.

"Dismissed." he snapped, and inwardly promised himself that he would have this rodent's hide if there was a single thing wrong with the tasks he had given him.

-

Balancing the books he had gotten from the library, the boots he had cleaned and a new heap of laundry that his tutor had forgotten at the laundry, Leesha used his elbow to knock on his Junior Captain's door. 

His ears were still ringing from the dressing down he had received by the man at the laundry counter. Obviously his tutor had a habit of forgetting stuff there.

But that didn't manage to dampen his spirits as he had managed to complete all the tasks set for him in only two hours. Finding the laundry services and the library had not been difficult. He had memorized deck plans of the station before he had come. Finding the right charts hadn't taken more than a few minutes. But cleaning those damned boots had presented surprising problems. In all his life Leesha had never before cleaned a boot so he had needed several tries till he got it good enough that he hoped Karl wouldn't complain.

And if he did Leesha would simply clean them again.

That his tutor was not exactly happy with being assigned to him had been quite obvious. To Leesha that just meant that he would have to work extra hard to gain the older cadet's friendship. He wasn't willing to settle for less.

"Enter." Karl's voice sounded from inside.

Leesha palmed open the door with his elbow and stepped into the small room that the senior cadet had all to himself now. He was sitting at his desk, reading and taking notes.

As he had his hands full Leesha didn't even try to salute. "Sir." he said flatly to gain his tutor's attention.

It filled him with satisfaction that Karl looked quite surprised by his swift return. "Back already?" the senior cadet asked.

"Yes, sir." Leesha answered this rather superfluous question. Without waiting for further orders he put the new books from the library onto the desk. Then he started putting away the laundry.

He could feel the older cadet watch him in silence and when he turned back to Karl he nodded appreciatively.

Feeling slightly nervous Leesha came back to the desk and handed Karl the boots for inspection.

He was relieved when Karl only glanced at them and then dropped them next to the cot.   
"Okay... The aeronautic vectors?"

Leesha picked up the book from the top of the stack he had deposited on the table and handed it to Karl. "I've put in a marker for you, sir."

"Good." The senior cadet smirked at Leesha. "Seems you don't really need me to show you around the station."

"I'm able to find my way, sir." Leesha answered politely. He would have loved to have the older cadet show him around. There was a big difference between memorizing deck plans and being shown all the wonders of the station in real life. But he's be damned if he begged for a tour.

"Permission to speak, sir?" he asked instead.

"Granted."

"Laundry services told me to tell you that if you forget your stuff with them again they will redistribute it to cadets who appreciate it." Leesha repeated the word of the service man verbatim. At least one little snipe he could deliver to the arrogant senior cadet.

Karl looked stunned for a moment but then his perpetual frown cracked and he laughed out loud, suddenly looking a lot friendlier. "I will take more care in the future. Anything else?"

"No, sir." Leesha answered trying to keep his voice neutral but not quite able to keep his disappointment hidden.

Karl nodded and studied Leesha for a moment. "What about I invite you for a drink?" he then asked, startling Leesha with the sudden shift in behaviour.

"Sir?" he asked, blinking in confusion.

"Invite. I pay, you drink." Karl explained with a roguish grin. "Even though this is a space station and a military academy, we're not living like the monks here"

Maybe winning his tutor over wouldn't be as difficult as Leesha had expected. Turning on his most charming smile Leesha accepted the invitation. "Sounds good, sir."

Karl reacted with a surprised raise of an eyebrow to Leesha's dazzling smile. "Well, then..." He got up and switched off the desk lamp, getting ready to leave. With a rather daunted glance at the books stacked on the desk he asked. "You don't happen to know anything about space-ship category numeration algorithms, by any chance...?"

\- end flashback -

\---

And still Leesha was sitting there on the desk like a little messenger of doom, a mean grin plastered across his face. He had already lost a lot of his initial childish looks, Karl realized suddenly. He would grow into quite a striking man one day. But that didn't help one bit with the fact that this little rodent right then was seriously enjoying to torture him with the ridiculous questions of his flying finals. 

"Okay, give me a hint." he grumbled, knowing he all but admitted defeat with the question. 

"A hint?" With mock exasperation, Leesha glared at his tutor. "Karl, that pilot is getting closer and closer to the atmosphere; you only have another minute or two..."

This was simply too much. 

"You little rodent, I'll - " Karl threatened quite seriously, but a knock at the door stopped him in mid-sentence. How unusual for this time of the day. And in the well-ordered universe of Kalidor, surprises always meant trouble. 

"Time out?" he asked his friend, waiting until Leesha nodded his consent before he called: "Enter!"

Another freshman entered, holding a bright metal tube in his hands. Saluting, he said: "Junior Captain, a message from Del'Morad for you!"

So much for messengers of doom. In all his years away from Del'Morad, he had never received a letter from home, and the fact that it was delivered in one of the sealed metal envelopes the Psion's Guild used for teleported messages indicated an urgency that only added to the unpleasant implications. Nodding, Karl took the message and dismissed the other cadet before he dared to look at the seal in the tube's oval impression. 

"That's the seal of my stepmother..." he said flatly, trying hard not to let his surprised relief show. If she was still in a condition to send messages with the Psion's guild, not all was lost. Hopefully. 

On his place on the desk, Leesha was sitting in silence, well aware of his friend's distress. It was good to know that he was around, Karl thought. Whatever news this message contained, he was rather sure he would need Leesha's comfort afterwards. 

It took Karl a real effort of will to break the seal and unscrew the two parts of the message tube. There was a single page inside, and when Karl unrolled the heavy parchment, it took him a moment to realize the letterhead of the Duke of Del'Morad. Mother writing him on Father's paper? 

But the real surprise came in the very first line of the letter. "To my son," his mother had penned in her unmistakeable hand, "Duke Karl of Del'Morad." 

Duke Karl. His whole universe shook with the enormity of this single expression. Several times, he read the line again, driven by a vain hope he had only been mistaken. Swiftly, he scanned the rest of the message, but basically, it was all the same.

"My father is dead." he announced flatly to Leesha, not knowing how to react to the situation himself.

But his friend didn't seem to have any such qualms. It took the cadet only a moment to change his expression from concerned to grinning, and he exclaimed rather joyfully:

"Great! Congratulations!"

Well, he wasn't that wrong, Karl had to admit. After all, this meant he had saved a lot of trouble by not having to kill the rotten bastard himself. Nonetheless, it also meant that someone had done the job for him, and he was seriously worried that his stepmother had somehow been involved. If she had deviated from their plan, she had acted on impulse, and that meant she probably had left so many traces that their enemies would have a feast. 

"This is very... unexpected." he said, trying to express his thoughts without saying too much too loud. He was Duke now, and suddenly all walls could sprout ears, even here on Kalidor. 

"Aren't you happy?" Leesha asked, now some worry back in his voice. "I thought you wanted him dead..."

Now that was a truth if he had ever heard one. 

"A thousand times over." he replied grimly. The cursed bastard had died without giving Karl a chance to make him suffer, and the new duke didn't know if he was to be happy or upset about the fact.

\---

 

\- flashback -

"Quite nice, isn't it?"

With a sweeping gesture Karl presented his 'secret spot', the right most part of the observation gallery, where one of the ceramsteel beams that supported the huge windows met the floor and formed a secluded corner. The window offered a spectacular view of the stars with no part of Kalidor Station visible. One could imagine to be floating in space all alone.

At this hour of the night the observation gallery was deserted so they had the place all to themselves. Just like they had planned.

"Beautiful." Leesha sighed, deeply impressed.

For a few minutes they just stood there, lost in the view but then Karl tore himself away from the beckoning stars and started unpacking the large bag he had brought. Leesha had guessed that it would contain some sort of picnic. But he watched in awe when Karl seriously spread a large blanket and then produced a variety of different tasty treats.

Karl stopped his rummaging and looked up at Leesha. "Come, sit." he invited the younger cadet.

Leesha settled next to Karl and tried to peer into the bag, curious what else Karl was hiding in there. Being a rather chaotic person, the senior cadet wasn't exactly famous for being able to organize things. But this time he had obviously paid close attention to detail.

He smiled at Leesha's curiosity. "As I said, we're a bit cut off here, but not completely."

That brought a fond smile to Leesha's face as well. Karl had told him that the day Leesha had arrived. Half a year had past since then and they had come a long way. While the other Junior/Senior pairings of the year had gone the usual way Leesha had managed to charm his way into Karl's heart. Underneath the rough exterior of the older cadet Leesha had found a surprisingly kind and passionate young man. Someone that Leesha was very happy to call his friend now.

The other seniors had been less understanding off their deviation from tradition and had ridiculed Leesha and teased Karl for a while till Karl had put an end to that. A rather violent end that had earned him some days in the detention cell.

Leesha would have chosen a more peaceful approach to the problem but he had been flattered nonetheless that his tutor would beat someone up to protect him.

Since then they had been inseparable.

Now Karl pulled a bottle of Chiraz wine from his bag of wonders. Much to Leesha's delight. A good wine truly was a rare thing on Kalidor. Karl opened the bottle and poured two glasses, handing one to Leesha.

"Thanks for getting me through my aeronautics exam." he said, toasting Leesha.

Leesha grinned back at him brightly. "My pleasure, I'd never live it down if I let you fail."

Karl wasn't exactly fond of learning. He could cram all the necessary facts into his head but only if forced to do so. He needed someone drilling him or he regularly failed his theory tests. In the two years before Leesha's arrival he had made it through his classes with repeating various exams and earning quite some negative marks in his file.

On the other hand he was brilliant with all practical tests and a great teacher when it came to flying and shooting.

Karl chuckled. "Well, you're in for a tough job. Math finals are less than three months away."

Only three months and Karl would begin his finals at Kalidor. Only half a year and he would graduate. Leesha already knew that he would miss Karl madly. Just like he now missed his family. Other 'proper' Dracons would tell him that he got attached too easily and that he was way too emotional but Leesha didn't care. He could deal with missing his loved ones. Better to be able to love and miss someone then to be an emotionally crippled wreck.

"We'll manage." he said full of optimism. Then he took a first sip of the wine and sighed happily. "Hmm... I missed this."

"Good, good." Karl tasted the wine as well and then leaned back on his elbow, grinning at Leesha. "Tell me about the waters of your home-world."

"The waters of my home world are rather murky and muddy." Leesha answered with a laugh, thinking of the shallow, polluted seas of P2. "Have you been to P2?"

Karl answered with a snicker. "It was meant in a more lyrical way," he admonished, "but to answer your questions, no, never. All I know about the Empire's shining heart I have learned from holovids."

Leesha pursed his lips. "It's not that shining in close up," he said, "but it has its charming sides. One day you'll have to come over and I'll show you Imperial City in all its glory."

"Sure, I'd love to." Karl took another sip of the wine, still looking at Leesha with almost sentimental curiosity. "So how was it to grow up there?" he asked, "tell me."

Leesha closed his eyes, his mind returning home. Returning to the Pearlblue Tower, filled with the constant sounds of a large happy family living close together. Not that the tower didn't offer enough space for everyone, it was huge. But being close to each other was something Leesha's parents, their various pets and their children enjoyed. So meals usually consisted of all of them gathering, chatting about their lives and there was always someone to spend time with when you needed company.

"Wonderful," he answered Karl's question, "I miss my parents and all my siblings. When you have grown up with so many people you love and who love you it's quite lonely out here."

-

Well, that surely was one thing about home Karl didn't miss. He was very close with his stepmother, but that was more a thing of mutual goals and respect than anything that had to do with love. And his father... Better not to dwell on the subject any more than necessary. 

Apparently, Leesha had noted his distress, though, for the young cadet opened his eyes and looked over to his friend. 

"What's wrong?" he asked, his head cocked in a gesture of cutest concern. 

"Nothing." Karl replied much too swiftly to create a single ounce of credibility. Grimacing at his miserable denial, he sighed. It was hard to put his feelings into words, especially considering the kind of home he had grown up in. "I... I don't really miss home." he finally brought out. 

"Awh." Usually, Karl would have slapped anybody giving him this kind of reaction, but with Leesha, it sounded genuine enough. Even more so as the youth suddenly leaned forward and put an arm around his tutor's shoulders. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to upset you."

The gesture was unexpected, but most definitely not unwelcome. Flashing a grateful smile at Leesha, Karl said softly: "Not your fault at all."

It hurt inside to imagine his friend having a family that was based on things like trust and love and not fear and violence. But it really wasn't Leesha's fault that his home had been different, nor was it Leesha's fault that he wasn't strong enough to deal with the things the way they were. 

"It's good that at least some of us have a real family." 

"I know it's a rare thing." Leesha replied rather evenly, putting his other arm around Karl as if on second thought, gently hugging his tutor.

It was a lovely, very human and surprisingly innocent gesture, and Karl revelled in the touch. In a way, this had always been how he imagined a real family to feel like. 

"Thanks." he whispered.

-

"You're welcome." Leesha stroked Karl's neck, wondering what could have his friend tense up so suddenly. Carefully he extended his senses to catch a glimpse of Karl's aura. What he found was a reflection of the tension his fingertips felt at Karl's neck. 

"You're all knotted up with tension," Leesha said, "how about a good massage?"

Karl looked doubtful and a shiver of some negative emotion ran through his aura. But then Karl obviously fought the feeling down and grinned. "Sure."

Leesha quickly unbuttoned Karl's uniform jacket and his shirt and then took them off before Karl could change his mind. He made way on the blanket and Karl stretched out on his stomach, his aura now a warm and relaxed colour with the lines of worry and emotional pain paling.

But when Leesha knelt over Karl's butt and ran his fingers over his tutor's strong back appreciatively those lines flared again for just a moment. 

Karl grunted gratefully, shifting between Leesha's thighs. 

Leesha started his massage at the tense shoulder muscles and used his Aroona training to relax the inner tension he sensed while thoroughly enjoying the handsome body underneath him at the same time.

Physically Karl relaxed almost immediately but the emotional tension seemed to grow. 

Leesha frowned down at his friend. "Why are you so tense?" he asked curiously.

"Huh?" Karl asked back sluggishly.

"You're...worried," Leesha tried to put into words what he was sensing, "hurt... broken..."

-

There was a most unpleasant twitch, somewhere in the back of Karl's conscious mind, at the sound of Leesha's words. 

Rather irritated, he pushed himself up onto his elbows, craning his neck to have a look at Leesha. 

"What are you talking of?"

"I don't know, I can just feel it, that's why I'm asking." 

There was such honesty in the other cadet's words that Karl seriously started wondering if he knew everything about his friend. 

"Your files say nothing about you being psychic...", he wondered aloud.

"I'm not," Leesha answered plainly, "but I spent my annum nobilis at the Aroona temple on Terra. They teach you to sense when someone is in pain, be it physical or emotional."

Karl had heard a lot about the rumoured abilities of Aroona priests and their likes. They ranged from reading hearts to stealing souls, and even if the truth was somewhere in the middle of it - it was nothing he wanted to see used on himself. 

"You're an Aroona priest?!" he snapped, instinctively trying to squirm out from under Leesha's suddenly very constricting thighs. This of course, was complete nonsense, as he realized in an instant. Trying to regain a remote semblance of reason, Karl stated flatly: "That wasn't in your files." 

"Of course. It's in my CV!" Leesha insisted with an unreadable expression. "You are trying to evade the question."

The very obvious observation made Karl give a bitter laugh. 

"That is because I really don't want to answer." Still straining his neck to study Leesha's face, the young cadet wondered what was going on in his comrade's mind. But even now, with all the warnings Karl had been given about the dangers of trust, there was nothing but tender care. Trying for a more conciliatory tone, he almost whispered: "I have a rough idea what it is you are seeing, and I... do not think I can talk about it..."

"You don't have to," he got as reply, "I just think it might help to talk to a friend."

His friend. What a fragile and many-edged word this was among their family. Feeling somewhat numb, he lay down again, trying to calm his raging heart.

"Now we're friends," he said evenly, as if talking to nobody special, "but we're also Dracon. There will come a day where every piece of myself I trust to you will turn into a weapon against me. Not necessarily so in your hands, but it will." 

-

Leesha sighed softly. Theoretically he had always understood what his mother was talking about when she said that the constant infighting and backstabbing in House Dracon had long since surpassed what could be called 'survival of the fittest' and instead turned into a serious problem that was weakening the House by cutting off communication, team work and joined efforts. It also didn't leave the fittest alive but the most ruthless and brutal. Not really traits to encourage in people who were supposed to take care of the vast rest of humanity.

But he had never seen it so perfectly demonstrated as in the uneasy distrust of Karl, who Leesha considered his friend.

He would have trusted Karl with any secret without hesitation, knowing that whatever happened, Karl would only betray that trust under extreme duress. And then there would be other problems than a secret given away.

But for Karl it meant extreme emotional stress just to be asked to trust. It wasn't so much that he didn't want to, it was that he couldn't.

"There may also come a day when this pain will prove a crucial weakness." Leesha said, trying to carefully manoeuvre around the problem.

He leaned down and softly kissed his friend's neck. Then he climbed off him not to make him feel confined anymore.

"So?" Karl turned around, now facing him. 

His face still didn't show any off the emotional turmoil so evident in his aura. He probably had learned the hard way to hide his feelings.

"Talk can't make memories go away." Karl added.

"No," Leesha countered, "but sharing softens them."

Talking about the cause of the pain was often the first step to healing. That was one of the many useful lessons Leesha had taken with him after his annum nobilis on Terra.

He smiled at his tutor. "And when I know what pains you I may be able to offer help." he explained.

Karl studied Leesha in silence for a long time, finishing his wine. Leesha had no idea what was going on in his head and for a moment he regretted that he was not psychic like his brother Ciel. That would have been mighty useful at this point. 

"It's hard to trust a son of your mother..." Karl said finally.

That hurt. As if he would tell his mother anything Karl said. He had hoped Karl would at least trust him that far.

"You don't have to," he answered unable to suppress a tiny hint of reproach in his voice, "but I would have thought by now you knew me as who I am and not by who my parents are."

"I do, don't act unfair on me." Karl smiled, obviously amused by Leesha being miffed. "Also, when someone is wondering if he can trust you aloud, he usually asks politely to give him some incentive, or to try and persuade him."

Leesha blinked at Karl, feeling foolish. Of course his friend was right. That hadn't been very professional of him. He laughed a little embarrassed. "Sorry, I'm not all-knowing and perfect at everything either," he said, noting with relief that his blunder seemed to have relaxed Karl a lot, "I just worry about my friend."

Karl ruffled him affectionately. "I know."

For a moment he looked out of the window, then he sighed deeply. He settled with his back against the wall and held out his arm for Leesha to cuddle against him.

Leesha did so without hesitation. Feeling Karl so close was reassuring somehow, listening to his heartbeat. It made Leesha realize how much he had really missed the closeness of his family. There, a cuddle was always just a questioning look away. He rested his head against Karl's chest, waiting for Karl to either change the subject or speak about his pain.

-

Leesha had touched an unpleasant subject with Karl, and for quite a while, the senior cadet didn't know how to deal with this. It surely hadn't been his plan to spend this rare free afternoon with talk of his miserable childhood. But then again, silence wouldn't help anything. Leesha now knew there was something he wasn't telling, and it would distance them. But that was about the last thing Karl wanted, so after quite a while, he gave a soft sigh and said: 

"You know, my father firmly believes in adversity forming a strong character."

"Very Dracon." the youth in his arms replied.

Of course, Leesha was right, in a way. Their House had a history of rather cruel attitudes, but then again, right that was what had helped them gain supremacy over all the other Houses. Only that in the case of his father, it was only half the problem...

"Yes." Karl answered, trying to figure out how to explain the rest. "He is... kind of fond of proving his superiority to those he 'loves'. He expects them to fight back, of course, but he doesn't expect them to win." 

Leesha didn't react at all to this, and Karl wasn't sure if maybe, his friend was appalled or bored or something else entirely. 

"And once he has beaten them down," the senior cadet finished, "he has his certain way of celebrating the renewed submission of his pupils." 

This was about the most obvious he could get with the things his father had done to him. Somehow, the memories of each of those countless instances were painfully clear in his mind, but he didn't seem to be able to put them into words. 

"Not unheard of among Dracons either..." Leesha commented so neutrally that Karl snorted in reply.

"No, it isn't. But it makes me want to kill him nonetheless." 

"As is your right as his heir."

"Yeah, right." So now suddenly, they were at the crux of the matter. Everybody expected Karl to suffer, to burn with the desire to make his father pay for what he had done to him. It was the time-honoured tradition of their House. But no-one ever lost a word about feeling like a piece of shit all the way; it was all about strength and supremacy. So after a pause, Karl asked softly: "Why then do I feel inside as if my parents ought to have been people I could have loved in the first place? Why does it feel so... wrong?"

"Nobody said it's the right way to raise a child," Leesha replied, his even voice belying the almost heretical idea he proposed, "it's just the accepted way."

It felt so good hearing someone else saying that he wasn't all alone with his anguish. Leesha had been right; it did help to talk about things, even if only to have company in misery. Gently nodding, Karl hugged his fellow cadet closer, burying his face in Leesha's abundant hair. 

"Now you know. My father has taken me at his will so often I have forgotten to count, and instead of determination, all I feel is the desire to scream and weep and crawl into a dark corner and die there." Which was about the only thing a Dracon was never supposed to do. "Does that make me weak?" 

"No, it makes you human." Once again, Karl was startled with the determination he heard in Leesha's firm reply, and he smiled at he youth as he turned up he head, looking straight at his tutor. "It makes you the kind of noble this Empire needs to flourish and become a place where more than the current 3% of its population live in happiness and safety. It makes you special." 

"Thanks." What else was there to say? It was a sweet, loving flattery, and it felt like balm on Karl's sore soul. But probably, it was nothing more than that. "Do you really believe that?"

-

"That's what my parents have taught me and what I have grown up with." Leesha answered knowing full well that his parents different from most any other Dracon parents in every possible way.

There were good reasons why neither he nor his siblings had ever been allowed to stay with other Dracons unsupervised. Why other nobles' children considered the Pearlblue Tower either a place of sanctuary or utterly incomprehensible. Why all of them wholeheartedly agreed with their mother's careful plans of eliminating what she called the 'rotten branches' of House Dracon.

"That's... rare." Karl commented and from his voice Leesha could tell that what he was really thinking was 'unheard of'.

For a while there was silence, both of them considering their vastly differing childhoods. 

Then Karl spoke again. "So now that you know - what are you going to do?" he asked with gentle mocking. "What am I to do, Father?"

Leesha poked him, smiling at the honorific. "I'm not a priest." He cocked his head questioningly. "Was it so bad telling me?"

Karl put on a brave grin. "I feel like a turtle that has lost its shell, you know? Very... naked. Unprotected. Raw."

There was really only one way to offer comfort to someone who had suffered so. One way to soften the memories.

Carefully Leesha disentangled himself from his friend's embrace and turned so he could face him. "Can I kiss you?" he asked.

He was answered with a surprised laugh. "Sure."

Obviously Karl had no idea yet where this was going to lead. All the better, less chance for him to grow scared, Leesha thought. He leaned in slowly and then pressed his lips against Karl, coaxing a response from his friend.

It didn't take Karl long to kiss back with the hunger of someone who didn't know how to be gentle. But Leesha didn't let him take control. He kept their kissing light and teasing, carefully nurturing the senior cadet's interest without allowing him to just fall head over heels into mindless lust.

When Karl started to get restless, unsure where his friend was leading to, Leesha broke the kiss and withdrew a bit.

"Want more?" he asked with a smile.

Karl's smirk was rather dirty and had gained a lot of confidence. "More kisses or 'more'?" he asked back

"'More'" Leesha answered, knowing that his friend would be quite surprised when he discovered what exactly that meant.

-

Once again, the course of the afternoon took a very unexpected turn. Though, of course, in this case only to the better, Karl found. 

"I..." he started, not too sure on how to put this into words, in the end opting for the simplest version. "Well, sure. I'd be delighted."

This time, Leesha leaned into their kiss with even more emphasis, taking as much control of their playful caresses as was possible. Never before had Karl had an encounter with a younger cadet who was this... relentless in his manners, and he wasn't exactly sure on how to deal with that. 

He wasn't used to be the one getting kissed or being fondled, at least not as long as he joined on his free will. Several times, he tried to get his hands into Leesha's uniform, to dominate the other youth, but each time, his friend pushed him away with gentle insistence. 

Finally, Leesha withdrew from their kiss, putting a finger against Karl's lips. 

"Do you trust me not to hurt you?" he asked, and at first, his tutor couldn't make much sense out of this question.

"Yes...?"

"I want to make love to you, want to take you like it should be done," the young cadet in his arms explained as if it was the most natural thing in the world. "But only if you agree."

It took Karl a moment to really understand what his friend had just suggested, and then he had to gasp with the outrageous idea. Leesha was almost two years younger than him, a lot lither and under his tutelage, of all things! Why on earth should he spread his legs for the fledgling? Karl had never before allowed another man to take him like this, and surely - 

But then a rather reasonable question popped up in his mind. 

Why? 

Not like in, why should Leesha want to, but more like in why not? Why did he mind so much, and even by thinking the question, Karl knew that its answer would lead him right to those moments when he had been tied up and beaten, raped and ridiculed by his own father.

Somehow, it made it hard to think of taking the passive part in any love-making. As if only submitting to a stronger partner was bearable, and only after he had given enough of a fight. And Karl felt far too much of his father's thoughts in this argumentation, and far too much fear of his own. 

His father might have been able to beat him at home, to make him fear and loathe his own family. But not here, and surely not in Karl's own mind. 

"I..." Gently stroking Leesha's face, he felt like a little child about to jump from a cliff. "But next time, it's going to the other way round, yes?"

"For as many times as you want..."

\- end flashback -

\---

"This is... unexpected." Karl said slowly, his eyes still on the message from his stepmother, his brow creased in an unhappy frown.

He didn't say it but Leesha could almost hear the 'not as it had been planned' in his words.

"He has been assassinated, it seems," Karl explained, "and I am a bit worried that... something has gone wrong."

Leesha knew of only one person who had hated the late Duke of Del'Morad as much a Karl and that was his stepmother. "Gone wrong... with your stepmother?" he asked.

His friend shrugged. "I will be able to learn more soon enough." he said and then sighed deeply. "You can put away the questions, I think," he continued, "a guard of honour is to pick me up in a few hours to bring me back home, where I am to assume my place as ruling Duke of Del'Morad."

He sounded anything but thrilled at the prospect and Leesha couldn't blame him. Being Duke was a hard job under any circumstances, especially for someone young and untried as Karl. Assuming the title after the long rule of someone like Karl's father would be like jumping headfirst into a vipers' nest.

Then Leesha realized what his friend had just said and couldn't suppress an unhappy "Oh."   
Karl would be gone in a few hours. 

"Well... I guess being Duke is more important than finals, huh?" he tried a light-hearted approach that even to his own ears didn't sound too convincing.

Karl nodded. "I'm sorry."

Leesha managed to put on a bright smirk. "For what? For taking the pleasure of torturing you from me?"

"Of ending this without proper time to say good-bye." Karl answered, unwilling to slip into banter.

To know that Karl would miss him as well made Leesha's heart ache but it also was a good feeling.

"We have a few hours, right?" he asked, putting the data pad down. Quickly he got up and went over to Karl, slinging his arms around his best friend's neck from behind and nuzzling his ear.

There was a good chance they wouldn't see each other for many years. So they should better make the best of the few hours that remained.

Karl laughed nervously, his mind still half on the message, but then he dropped it to the table and leaned back into Leesha's touch.

"You're right, as always," he said softly, "let's make some pleasant memories for me to take home."


End file.
